Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,The Coral clasps and amber studs,All these in me no means can moveTo come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,Had joys no date, nor age no need,Then these delights my mind might moveTo live with thee, and be thy love.

Footnotes

When referring to nature, the adjective “wanton” means “profuse in growth,” “luxuriant, abundant, and unchecked.” This creates the image of a wild field that is uncontrollable. In Marlowe’s poem, the shepherd promises his lover that he will make her a bed of roses and clothing out of these flowers. However, in her response, the nymph tells him that the field cannot be tamed or used for human purposes.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Once again, the nymph uses almost the exact same words as the shepherd in order to craft her response. This satirical use of his language reveals the divide between fantasy and reality: the shepherd and the nymph look at the same subject and see drastically different things. Ironically, the nymph sees the tools of the shepherd’s courtship as evidence for why she must reject him. While the shepherd has an unrealistic perception that nature is unchanging, the nymph’s realistic view of time reveals his promises to be impossible.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The poem ends with a subtle rejection of the shepherd’s advances and, by extension, Marlowe’s pastoral fantasy. By listing impossible demands for everlasting life, the nymph avoids the shepherd while humorously critiquing his faulty vision of the world. In a sense, the speaker is offering a more-grounded vision, one which the shepherd is no doubt seeking to escape through his constructed fantasy. Raleigh is ultimately accusing Marlowe of inauthenticity. The character of the nymph is a pawn in Raleigh’s mission to reveal Marlowe’s poetic delusions for what they are, and in a broader sense to critique the pastoral tradition as a whole.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

In Raleigh’s imagination, the one good that would entice the nymph is no less than the proverbial fountain of youth. The speaker understands the fading nature of roses, kirtles, amber clasps, and, most importantly, her own form. Only the shepherd, who can realistically offer the impossible, may charm the nymph. This sentiment blends tones of both humor and heaviness. The notion is playful and yet serious in its acknowledgement of mortality.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

In the original poem, the shepherd repeats his initial request in the form of a conditional statement: “if these pleasures may thee move, come live with me and be my love.” Though the reader might expect the poem to stop after this repetition, it continues. The speaker lists more reasons why the woman should come with him. Here, Raleigh offers the reader a reason why the shepherd might continue: the nymph claims to be “unmoved” by the shepherd’s promised pleasures, so he must offer her new delights.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

This is a distinctly musical line. Raleigh makes particular use of assonance and alliteration, all while paying close attention to meter. The line has four beats. The first three of the beats fall on words that share a hard e vowel sound: “these”/“me”/“means.” The final three fall on words that begin with m: “me”/“means”/“move.” The vowel-sound downturn on the final beat—the shift from e to o—conveys a feeling of released tension, a sort of letdown. Thematically, this feeling expresses the shepherd’s own disappointment when the nymph refuses his gifts.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

The unusual syntax of this line allows for the word “means” to carry two meanings. First, “means” can refer to the methods or procedures intended to achieve a goal. By that meaning, the shepherd’s gifts are “no means” which can effectively move the nymph to “be thy love.” Second, “means” also refers to money and financial resources. Thus, the nymph’s sentiment is: My love cannot be bought through gifts.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

Raleigh uses an abundance of liquid consonants—l and r—to produce a decadent sound that underscores the meaning of the line. He places three r words on consecutive beats to heighten the effect, a type of alliteration prevalent in Anglo-Saxon verse. Finally, the line carries an extra unstressed syllable at the end, conveying a sense of excess. With a surplus of syllables and oozing consonants, the reader can hear the quality of rottenness described in the line.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

This stanza consists of almost exactly the same language of the original poem. Raleigh’s speaker make small changes to the poem in order to use the shepherd’s words to reject him. The shepherd promises her “a belt of straw and ivy” in Marlowe’s poem. However, here she calls it “thy” belt, assigning the object to the shepherd rather than accept ownership of it. Changes like this are a form of satire in which the nymph mocks the shepherd’s unrealistic view of the world by repurposing his own words.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The noun “gall” refers literally to the secretion of the liver, but metaphorically suggests a feeling of bitterness. According to the Greek medical theory known as “humorism,” gall was responsible for feelings of melancholy and sorrow. The sentiment in this line and the next is that the shepherd’s poetic seductions, the ways of his “honey tongue,” eventually lead to sorrow and waste.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

The nymph emphasizes the poem’s theme in this stanza by juxtaposing all of the things the shepherd promises her with “break,” “wither,” and “forgotten.” While the pastoral shepherd considers the life he promises her to be unchanging and idyllic, the nymph points out the reality of nature is to change. Promises and love cannot be eternal because over time they will break, wither, and be forgotten.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The nymph catalogues the many things that the shepherd promises her in these two lines. By listing them, the nymph separates each item from the metaphor the shepherd ascribes to it. In this way, she undercuts the metaphorical beauty with which he imbues these items. They form a stark list with little importance.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Raleigh’s purpose in this poem is to deflate the pastoral paradise Marlowe sketches in “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” In Marlowe’s poem, the only care that the speaker has is whether or not he can seduce his love. In Raleigh’s vision, the cares and troubles of the real world apply their typical pressures. “The rest” refers to the rest of us, the inhabitants of the real world outside the romantic fantasies of young shepherds. For us, there are plenty of cares, and surely more to come as time marches on.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

The nymph maps human emotion onto the seasons in order to show that love changes over time. Spring is often used in poetry to refer to youth and coming of age; Fall, to middle age or adulthood. The nymph claims that while young lovers have honey tongues and fancy each other, over time the love fades and creates sorrow. Notice how the nymph uses poetic metaphors to refute the shepherd’s poetic claims; she repurposes his words to disprove him.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The phrase “honey tongue” means sweet talk. In this context, it refers to the sweet poetry and elaborate metaphors that the shepherd uses to woo his love. While the shepherd uses these metaphors to convince the woman that he will love her forever, these lines show that his wooing ironically makes her think of his inconstancy, rather than his constancy.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The noun “reckoning” has strong religious connotations. It refers to the act of accounting to God after death for one’s conduct in life. The speaker describes the flowers as yielding to winter’s “reckoning” to dramatize the confrontation between the pastoral and the reality of time and nature. In a sense, the pastoral must submit to winter and reckon for the falseness it perpetuated. The shepherd’s lavish promises must reckon with the nymph’s realistic understanding of the world.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

In this context, the verb “yields” means both to relinquish control to and to give. Raleigh takes this word from the first stanza of Marlowe’s poem in which nature “yields,” or gives, pleasures to the lovers who experience it. However, the nymph uses the more violent meaning of the word: the flowers and fields yield to winter. In other words, rather than giving pleasure to the lovers, these beautiful objects in nature are destroyed by winter.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Once again, Raleigh twists the imagery in Marlowe’s poem. Marlowe’s “shallow Rivers” become “Rivers [that] rage.” Marlowe’s shepherd imagines how “we will sit upon the Rocks” while Raleigh’s nymph thinks ahead to evening when “Rocks grow cold.” As ever, the nymph is the realist, understanding that rivers can be dangerous and rocks cold to the touch, that night falls on even the most pleasant day.

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

The phrase “might me move,” with its dense alliteration and playfully unusual syntax, creates a tone that matches the sentiment of the line. The phrase is excessively sweet, just like the shepherd’s “pretty pleasures.”

— Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor

Raleigh uses an active, rather than passive, construction here to emphasize that time itself is responsible for the action. By doing this, Raleigh personifies time by giving it agency and power, attributions normally given to humans. Notice how he continues to use such active phrasing to describe the actions of non-human entities that follow.

— Wesley, Owl Eyes Editor

The adjective “wayward” describes something that does not conform to a fixed rule or principle of conduct. Unlike the pastoral landscape that the shepherd paints, which is predictable, calm, and in harmony with human desires, this winter is unaccountable to human expectations. The nymph breaks apart the shepherd’s promises using the reality of nature.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The adjective “wanton” also refers to a lusty person. In Marlowe’s poem, the speaker uses nature to make his love claims and convince the woman that she belongs with him. Nature assists in his courtship. In the nymph’s reply, the speaker personifies nature as “wanton,” a word with negative connotations of dangerous wildness, in order to show a different side of the natural world the shepherd paints as idyllic.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The conjunction “if” introduces conditions or suppositions, like beliefs, that are then balanced by a possible result. This means that any “if” statement indicates that the conditions are only possible, that they are not representative of reality. That Raleigh begins the poem with this word suggests that many of the conditions that follow are unreal things, which creates a tone of uncertainty or, possibly, mockery.

— Wesley, Owl Eyes Editor

The “flowers” that the nymph refers to here are the flowers that the shepherd promises to turn into clothes for her in Marlowe’s poem. Specifically, she means roses, posies, and myrtles. While the shepherd focuses on the beauty of the flowers and of the objects he gives her, the nymph focuses on the ephemeral nature of the flowers and their inevitable fading.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The “rest” could refer to the other things in Marlowe’s stanza that the nymph does not mention here, specifically “birds sing madrigals”. While the birds in Marlowe’s poem are used as an example of beautiful harmony and perfection, here the nymph repurposes their song as an ominous sign of cares to come. This repurposing problematizes the pastoral: it is so focused on the good that it ignores the problems of the future.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The expression “to become dumb” means to lose the ability to speak. Philomel going “dumb” might also signify that her story has been forgotten. The nymph’s words might invoke a broader sense of time than the progression of that day. This reference could point to the time in history when humanity no longer remembers Greek stories and Philomel is silenced and forgotten. This larger vision of time realistically frames the shepherd’s love for the nymph as insignificant; if even the great stories of the Greeks fall into ruin, then no mortal love story can last the way the shepherd promises.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Philomel is a character from Greek mythology. In the myth, Philomel’s brother-in-law Tereus rapes her and cuts out her tongue so that she cannot tell anyone what happened. She weaves a tapestry to tell her sister what happened, and then the two women kill Tereus’s son and feed the body to him. The gods turn Philomel and her sister into birds to save them after Tereus finds out what they have done. This myth is an example of the danger in unrequited male love, such as the love the shepherd feels for this nymph.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The noun “fold” refers to a pen or enclosure for animals. In Marlowe’s poem, the speaker tells the woman that they will sit on rocks and watch shepherds feed their flocks. The nymph’s reply here adds reality to the picture that the shepherd paints. Though they may enjoy watching the sheep for a time, eventually the sun will set and the sheep will go back to their pen. This challenge to his logic also indicates the progression of time which is absent from the shepherd’s vision of their future together.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Throughout the poem, Raleigh uses Marlowe’s exact words in a slightly different manner. These parallel lines represent a form of direct satire, the use of irony or ridicule to expose and criticize someone’s foolishness or vice in contemporary politics or topical issues. In parroting the shepherd’s words back to him in a way that disproves them, the nymph mocks not only this lover but the poetic tropes he uses to woo her. Raleigh uses the mocking voice of the nymph to criticise the entire literary form of the pastoral. Which was extremely popular in his time.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The “pretty pleasures” to which the nymph refers are the valleys, groves, hills, woods, etc. that the shepherd promises to bring her in the first stanza of Marlowe’s poem. Her immediate response is to cast doubt on the Shepherd’s truthfulness and to remind him that the things he promises her are fleeting. They have come and gone before. While the speaker of Marlowe’s poem sees the world through poetic imagery and pastoral metaphors, the speaker of Raleigh’s poem sees the world through reason and a realistic understanding of nature.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

The shepherd is the speaker from Marlowe’s poem “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love” and a representation of the pastoral tradition. The pastoral is a literary tradition that idealizes rustic, country lifestyles. It imagines artistic shepherds in an idyllic landscape of timeless spring. It remains unspoiled by time or the stresses of the modern city. Much like the Greek pastoral from which Renaissance writers drew the idea, the pastoral was largely a response to the complexity of society within the city. The simple, peaceful, and uncomplicated life of the country were glorified as an escape from reality.

— Caitlin, Owl Eyes Staff

Marlowe’s shepherd promises his love an idyllic, timeless world. However, the nymph replies that the world is not “young.” To make this argument, the nymph draws on Christian theology and humanity’s fall from grace. In the Bible, Adam and Eve enjoy paradise in the garden of Eden, a peaceful place untouched by evil, time, or corruption. When they eat an apple from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they are condemned to mortality. The “young world” is the pre-fallen, Edenic world. The nymph reminds the shepherd that they live in a fallen world and therefore everything he has promised is false.